Monday, March 10, 2008

Fight or Flight Response: Disregard in Mathews

In an emergency, we have a built-in response mechanism that equips us to fight the enemy or situation at hand or run like heck to get away from it. This is otherwise known as the Fight or Flight Response (or something close to that, I'm not much on details, and my memory fails me frequently, but I can get you in the Close Enough ballpark).

So imagine taking a seat at your computer, gazing out your window and seeing an entire yard UP IN FLAMES across the creek from you. You might be all, "Oh my gosh!" or "Call 911!" Or, "Look how close that is coming to that house!" and "EXACTLY HOW MUCH LONGER UNTIL THAT FIRE JUMPS THE CREEK AND BURNS MY HOUSE TO THE GROUND?" Followed by, "Quick! Put on some clean underwear, EMERGENCY SITUATION IS IMMINENT." (Or is the emergency situation the lack of clean underwear? I digress.)

But never mind all those RATIONAL thoughts, throw them out the window. No, you're in Mathews now. Just stifle any typical reaction and instead consider driving over to the house across the creek. Which is mere centimeters from burning to the ground. And bring your marshmallows, hot dogs and lawn chairs, because we've got what is known around here as a good old fashioned BRUSH BURNING PARTY.

And now for the educational part of this post! Shoreline fires are intentionally set to (a) discourage shoreline growth (b) encourage shoreline growth (c) I have no freaking idea why people intentionally set fires mere centimeters from their house (d) scare the bajeebus out of everyone and most important of all (e) SMOKE YOU TO DEATH SINCE YOU'RE DIRECTLY DOWNWIND OF THIS DISTURBING EVENT or (f) all of the above. (Answer is f.)

Footage at 11.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You got me laughing. How dare you! I was imperfectly content being in an abysmal mood. But I love this "practice" blog of yours... (translation: can't commit, don't want to say it's real for fear of failure, so let's just "practice", says a fellow INFP). Oh, the things you see from your window! Mathews sounds a lot more exciting than wretched suburbia. Write on!

Chesapeake Bay Woman said...

Kaffy, you are 100% correct on why I call this a practice blog. It is the same INFP thinking that tells the waitress, "Yeah, that chicken was a little pink in the middle, but it sure tasted good."

And for what it's worth, the fire is now over, but the smoke lingers on.

Still can't find clean underwear though...